Plenty of shows feel hard to get into, but some only have such a barrier to entry because it’s not clear where to start. Maybe there are a few different adaptations, alternate continuities, and stories told out of order. If you’re lucky, you’ll have friends to guide you, or maybe a handy watch order guide.

While 2022’s Winter season rages on with much-anticipated sequels, I’m stuck between the years 2010 and 2014 reflecting on a piece of ecchi action many forgot about. From Tatsunoko Productions and director ryo-timo, this is Yozakura Quartet.

First off, let’s make things clear. Yes, there is a series from 2008 also based on the manga of the same name. I did not watch that show. Mainly because everyone says it’s bad. And what I saw from every other entry looked baller as hell. But there was still the question of where to start.

Thankfully, I saved a little jpeg a long time ago called “How to watch Yozakura Quartet.

Turns out, in the year of our lord 2022, to get the most cohesive narrative, you’ve gotta do the following: Watch the first eight episodes of 2013’s Hana no Uta, then the 2010 OVA Hoshi no Umi, followed by the rest of Hana, and then finish it out with 2013’s Tsuki ni Naku.

All totaled, you’re looking at 19 episodes. With the benefit of time’s continuous progression towards the heat death of our universe, we aren’t burdened to consider how confusing it must have been to watch this show when the individual pieces were airing.

Yozakura Quartet is a modern fantasy set in Sakura Newtown, a city in Japan where Yokai (or Daemons depending on the subs you’re watching) live among humans. These humanoid figures blend in among the masses and come to escape the prejudice and dangers that exist around the world.

Our main characters are both young people burdened with responsibilities. The first is Akina Hizumi, a young man with the power to send daemons to the dimension they originate from. It’s not even treated as especially terrible. Some people would rather be sent to the other dimension than live in this one.

The trouble is, no one knows what that other dimension is like. So Akina finds himself hesitant to use his power at all and would rather make the city a place where everyone feels like they belong. On the flipside, Akina’s friend (and kinda-sorta girlfriend, you know how anime is), Hime Yarizakura, has responsibilities of her own.

At 16 years of age, she’s already the mayor of her town. Despite that burden, she’s rather enthusiastic about her role. She loves her town and the people in it and wants to prove herself. Her fighting skill alone makes her formidable, but it takes more than strength to endear people to you.

These two, along with an assortment of daemons, half-daemons, psychics, ogres, necromancers, and more, all work together to protect the town. Throughout the whole series, numerous villains attempt to cause unrest or destroy the town.

A big part of this show’s story revolves around finding acceptance and moving on from the past. So many of the characters came to the setting as an escape or search for belonging. Some who arrive first as antagonists or people burdened with sin find themselves a second chance.

The characters in the story are more than willing to offer that chance. For all the violence and the bombastic displays of superpowers in the action, there is an idea that all are deserving of a second chance.

The main reason the weird viewing order I subscribed to works is because the OVA’s either explain why characters are no longer hostile or are set after they become friendly.

I can’t imagine watching this series without this viewing order. For one thing, Hoshi no Umi‘s story spoils some events of Hana no Uta‘s first eight episodes. And if you don’t watch that OVA and only the TV anime, suddenly a character that was hostile is suddenly… not.

This being a manga adaptation, I have a feeling this show subscribes to the “read the manga” mentality, but in a disjointed “hope you’re already a fan” kinda way. It’s as if they didn’t know if they were gonna get renewed for more seasons. And they were right. This story isn’t finished.

For some that might already be a dealbreaker. But with the benefit of the watch-order I have presented, is this show entertaining enough despite the lack of finality? I’d say it’s pretty darn fun.

Two things define this show to me: visual style and fanservice. Being gay, I can’t say I got a ton out of the fanservice. However, something about how casual and understated it was struck me as entertaining. I wouldn’t call it subtle or classy, but it’s… different.

I’m struggling to find the words to describe it and spending more than two paragraphs feels like a waste of time. It doesn’t feel as egregious as some fanservice in anime while still being ultimately unnecessary.

That’s not to imply that none of the fanservice was somewhat problematic. There’s a trend in some anime where a character exists whom everyone hates but they just sorta put up with them and their sexual harassment. It’s as if they’re saying “we know they’re shitty but they’re too important to the plot to thoroughly punish.”

In this show, said swine is the ward mayor, who’s a chainsmoking god in the body of a young boy who repeatedly gropes women and leers at young girls. Even grade-schoolers. So while this show’s fanservice does occasionally get by on nostalgia, it also doesn’t age well in some areas.

I’ve tried to find an overlap between the people who made Yozakura Quartet and Senran Kagura, but I’ve found nothing connecting the two. My friends say the character design of Hime looks just like the main girl from Senran Kagura. The likeness is definitely there, but I couldn’t argue it’s anything other than inspiration or coincidence.

What really caught my eye was the animation. Ryo-timo has a history of key animation on some of the defining anime of the 2000s, from FMA Brotherhood to Gurren Lagann, Naruto, Baccano, and beyond. This is an animator let loose in a director’s chair and the results speak for themselves.

So many of the visual and audio trends that exploded in the late 2010s in anime are present here. Sound effects are bass-boosted in a time before JoJo took all the credit for bass-boosted punching. The sakuga feels very WebGen. What I mean is that the art design feels tied to the surge in animation talent that spawned from the growing sakuga community of the decade.

The fights are awesome and part of what carries them is the creativity of the characters’ superpowers. Some are your typical superstrength, but others like Kotoha have abilities that in other shows would be far too OP. Stuff like “Powerspeak,” the ability to summon any object through spoken word, is chaotic as all hell.

Yozakura Quartet feels like if you and your friends did a modern spin on D&D where everyone min-maxed with a focus on particular abilities. There’s a sense of familiarity and hometown pride instilled into the show’s DNA. When there aren’t active threats, the characters are living rather menial lives.

There’s work to be done, people to help out, and examples to be made. The peculiar family at the focus just happens to solve a few of the problems around town with the help of their powers.

Part of me is tempted to call this show’s style derivative of the time, but only because it captures a kind of “cool” that storytellers like this nail so well. The character designs’ mix of sexy and striking. The posing. The staging of battles. The rather generic Japanese metropolitan setting. Even just the simple and colorful art design.

Yozakura Quartet is one of those passing oddities that feels like the epitome of what draws people to anime. Small, meaningful moments of gratification that easily validate the curiosity that incites a viewing in the first place. More than that, though, it feels like a textbook case in allocating animation budget.

Even beloved shows have rough patches where the line art might be messy or the animation might be underwhelming. Sometimes it can clearly be attributed to style choices. Other times, they feel like evidence of limitation. But when I watch Yozakura, it’s like they know what’s the most important to preserve.

Posing and performance is put above cleanliness. Fluidity and expressiveness come before uniformity or consistency. It’s sakuga at its most foundational. With how much TV anime production has changed, I yearn for productions like these. It’s harder to make TV anime consistently well. Some say it’s impossible to match the quality of older projects. Perhaps we have things to learn from even modest shows like Yozakura.

I say modest because, for all of its symbolic charms, I can’t say that Yozakura Quartet was always exciting outside of its action scenes. Its performances are good enough but seldom did the characters wow me. Their character arcs touched on compelling drama but didn’t always emotionally resonate.

As a unit, however, the cast was entertaining. If the city is a character in itself, then the story has a strong protagonist.

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Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta, Hoshi no Umi, and Tsuki ni Naku are currently not available for legal streaming at the time of writing. You’ll have to venture onto the pirate seas to binge this one, should you dare.

I’ve been busy with life (I know, that’s pretty homosexual of me) but I’m glad that I made my return with this oddity of a series. My favorite reviews are often the niche shows that people don’t talk about a lot, so what better way to start 2022 strong… over a month in.

I recently finished writing a short story that I’d like to publish eventually. If you like the kinds of anime I like, it’ll probably be your cup of tea. So keep an eye out for more about that down the line.